Hulu targets U.S. Spanish speakers
Posted by Elena del Valle on January 4, 2012
Photo: Hulu Latino
Hulu, an online portal offering ad supported video content from NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, and Nickelodeon among others, decided recently to target Spanish speakers in the United States with a new channel, Hulu Latino (hulu.com/latino). Content for the new portal, only available domestically, is provided and selected by eleven companies: Azteca America, Butaca, Caracol Televisión, Comarex, Estrella TV, Imagina US, Laguna Productions, Maya Entertainment, RCTV, Todobebe Inc, and Venevision.
Hulu staff hope to capture the under served market segments of the video watching Hispanic market. They believe that, based on Nielsen data, 78 percent of that segment is bilingual. A spokesperson explained by email that promotion of the new channel will be the responsibility of its content partners. She declined to identify Hulu audience numbers, the exact target audience for the new portal or the exact number of Spanish language videos on offer.
She responded by email saying “The portal launched with hundreds of hours of Spanish-language film and TV shows on Hulu and Hulu Plus;” and “Hulu does not break out specific viewership information, but what we can say is that we are very excited about the new audiences we expect to serve with this content.”
According to an article in the Los Angeles Times (Hulu launches Latino service with Spanish-language programming) December 13, 2011 there are five Hulu Latino sponsors, Corona, Modelo, Toyota, Pantene, and Volkswagen of America.
NBCUniversal (Comcast/General Electric), News Corporation, The Walt Disney Company and Providence Equity Partners (owner of Newport Television) own Hulu. Founded in March 2007, Hulu has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Tokyo and Beijing.
